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THE WPA WAS FINISHED EVEN BEFORE WALTER’S DEATH
The WPA was a broken party even before the death of Dr. Walter Rodney. The PNC government had demoralized the party and left it in shambles even before the June 13, 1980 assassination of Walter Rodney.
The low-keyed political activity of the WPA did not create the environment that made it easy for the PNC to murder Rodney and get away with it. The low- keyed political activity was as result of a party which had been so prosecuted that it could no longer put up any resistance to Burnham. Burnham unleashed the full force of the police state on the WPA and the party could not withstand that pressure which came from all over.
. The security forces of the State, including military intelligence, had penetrated deeply into the WPA. They were spying from inside. The security forces on the outside of the party were brutalizing and murdering their activists. Ohene Koama and Edward Dublin were murdered by the PNC regime.
The homes of every single known WPA activists of note were under surveillance. The movements of these activists and who they spoke to was closely monitored. The homes of WPA activists were regularly searched. Perceived sympathizers were dismissed from their jobs. To have anything to do with the WPA in those days was to risk persecution and torture.
The PNC had no limits to the terror it unleashed.
The police once placed two WPA activists to sit naked on ants’ nests in the CID compound.
Even at the University of Guyana, there were spies planted in the classroom to monitor the activities of students lest they become involved with the WPA.
Some of these ‘classroom’ spies were on the payroll of the Ministry of National Mobilization which an extension of the ruling party under the doctrine of paramountcy.
A vicious police state had developed that brooked no opposition to the government. Some of those who did the undercover surveillance for the security services are now living in isolation in the United States of America and are prominent contributors to newspaper blogs.
There were moles within the WPA feeding information to the security services. The party did not cater for the level of repression that the Burnham regime forced on it and therefore the party, one year prior to Rodney’s death had lost any capacity to defend itself.
Rodney knew that his days were numbered. He had returned from Zimbabwe empty-handed. Even his revolutionary comrades in Africa abandoned him.
Help was also not forthcoming from the two bogus left- wing revolutions in the Caribbean. The New Jewel Movement in Grenada was under pressure from the United States and had little time or ability to support other revolutionary parties in the Caribbean. The military regime in Suriname which had WPA sympathizers was wrecked by internal divisions.
Rodney knew seven months before his assassination that Burnham would kill him. He accepted his fate, as declassified documents from the United States, now reveal. He accepted his fate but asked the United States to grant asylum to his family in the eventuality of his death.
No one needs a Commission of Inquiry to prove that Burnham was behind Rodney’s death. Burnham made no bones of his attention. He told the WPA to make their wills and that his ‘steel was sharper’.
He could say these things because he knew that he controlled the security forces. There were persons within those organizations who would do his dirty work.
Burnham had, a few years earlier flown in a dentist from the United States to perform four major dental reconstructions on his mouth.
A Minister of Burnham’s government was shot dead while in the company of this dentist. Burnham never established a commission of inquiry into that death.
The WPA was finished by the time Rodney was assassinated. After Rodney’s death its support base went back into their respective camps. The WPA no longer offered any hope of freeing Guyana from Burnham’s grip and his gripes.
Those within the WPA who are trying to claim that the party had a revival after Rodney‘s death are engaging in the most delusional form of political revisionism.
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Interesting and informative. The present situation in Guyana and inaction (collaboration?) of WPA in coalition govt., would support much of these facts.
Guyana was more advanced in technology…….way above the level of transistor- radio. It is apparent that you were not aware of that. Special building and special persons had access only.
Madam it was not the intention to discredit Guyana, but exactly as you stated “special buildings and special persons”. So the average person could not have done this, thus you have solidified my point that it was an act of one or both the PNC and the US CIA.